He uses the same Gnome Pounder model that Thermaplugg and other gnome mekgineers use. It is green instead of red, the green of the battle suit could either be fel corruption or from decades of radiation. It could mean nothing, because you can paint a robot any color you want, but usually the color is chosen to indicate something. In Gnomeregan spider tanks that do fire damage are red, ones that do frost damage are blue etc. Perhaps this character will have a poisonous irradiation attack.

The gnome pilot appears to be solid black some kind of shadow/void gnome, or possibly with a texture issue because it is still in beta. I thought it could be a new character or (as the name seems to suggest) a transformation of Thermaplugg.

There is a spell to spawn Omegaplugg. I don’t know what that means, because it could mean anything. It could be for a heroic version of Gnomeregan where Thermaplugg transforms at the end, or it could mean he is encountered somewhere (anywhere) else in the world.

Perhaps this is the first hint of adding in gnome Demon Hunters (unlikely).

My biggest hope is that it will be for a “Reclaiming Gnomeregan” Scenario where at the end, Gnomeregan will be an actual functioning city, or a crater with a shiny new city built on top.

No matter what it turns out to be, I am just really excited that we are seeing gnome lore moving forward!

The Great Detective. Think Sherlock Holmes, a brilliant character with an eye for detail that gave him an almost supernatural edge over his peers. If you take Sherlock Holmes and you add gadgets, who do you get?

Batman, you get Batman. Batman is TOTALLY a gnome. He smart, persistent, and he uses all kinds of cutting edge tech to one-up his enemies. Most importantly, Batman STUDIES his foes. By the time you get in a battle with Batman, you’ve already lost. He studies his enemies so that rather than trying having to overpower them, he puts them in situations where their power will defeat itself.

And what about going in to an unknown situation? Gnomes should be prepared. They should plan for every contingency imaginable. Another missing Gnome Genius is The Schemer.

Redundancy, escape plans, and fail safes. We aren’t goblins. We shouldn’t blow our selves up all the time. We should know exactly what we’re going to do when something goes wrong.

The Miserable Genius/Misanthrope. Gnomes are happy and cheerful a lot, but it’s weird, because they have a tragic shared history AND they are smarter than everyone else. Any person that is significantly intelligent will tell you, when you are surrounded by dumb people you are MISERABLE. Look at House from that doctor show about House. He is so much smarter than everyone else, he can barely stand it. It’s like being stuck moving at everyone else’s slow kindergarten pace all the time.

Add Gadgets to House and who do you get? Tony Stark, Ironman. Tony is miserable, but he has a mental flame of brilliance that won’t let him rest. He’s driven by his negative view of the state of the world to try as hard as he can to change it.

These are aspects I would LOVE to see incorporated in to a gnome hero. It’s really easy to make a Misanthropic Mad Scientist Villain and call it a day. When that character decides in spite of humanity’s flaws they want to save it, magic things happen!

Thanks to @VioletExplorer for poking me with questions and giving me things to think about!

Let’s face it. Gnome are sold as a super intelligent race of genius engineers, but in practice everything they do seems to fall flat on it’s face. We see lots of gadgets designed by gnomes take intelligence, but we never see gnomes applying there intellectual prowess in day to day activities.

The Super Genius archetype is what drew me to gnomes in the first place. A race as smart as gnomes, should never have blown up their own city before evacuating it. When shown forged numbers on the irradiator, Mekkatorque should have immediately said, “WTF is this Sicco? These numbers are Garbage, and your ONLY fail-safe are your untested KLEAN AIR filters. We can’t do this.” full stop.

Therr is a big focus on technological development, and we see gnomes have an understanding of physics and science that far exceeds other races. Genius is rarely so narrowly focused. I want to see brilliant gnomes doing strange inscrutable things that make you think, “what the heck is going on” and then at the end when the plan comes together you think, “WOW I didn’t see that coming how did they pull that of it’s incredible”

We never see gnomes strategizing. They get an idea and act on it. A lack for forethought is mot the mark of a Genius!

Tomorrow We’ll looks at a few of the things that could be added to bolster the “super Genius” fantasy.

What traits, aspects, mind-sets, and themes would you like to see fleshed out in their lore?

Pragmatism, Risk-taking, and Cooperation.

Gnome pragmatism is probably their greatest aspect at the moment. More than being bubbly engineers, it makes them more realistic as a race. It also means they are willing to do things that other races are not because they don’t put as much stock in ‘honor’, ‘humility’, ‘humanity’ etc.

They will do whatever gets the job done, and they are willing to take HUGE risks to do it. Risk-taking is a trait they share with goblins. To compare gnomes to goblins, gnomes are cooperative and goblins are competitive. It’s probably the biggest difference between the two races. You can see it in goblin profiteering, and in ‘the token gnome’

I see gnomes all over, in almost every Alliance settlement, but it is almost always just ONE gnome. I would like to see more large groups of gnomes working together and accomplishing something.

How would you write gnomes as being a -distinct race- apart from humans, and not relegated to jokes and ‘zany gadgets’?

I think gnomes biggest challenge is to set themselves apart from dwarves. To that end, they need to move out of the hole in the ground and in to the open air. Architecture does a lot to make a race feel distinct, and without a true capital city, gnomes are missing out on a lot of that.

I said yesterday that I would make Sand Gnomes a real thing and add them to the forces of Gnomeregan. I stand by that. It would add more variety to the race.

Culture is a big one, other races pull their culture from well understood real world reference points. Humans have European castles, tauren have a Native American flavor, night elves have heavy Greek influence, trolls have Aztec, but gnomes lack one of these real world analogies that makes them easy to understand. It would create a foundation that makes feel like you understand gnomes from jump instead of trying to develop ever single aspect of their personality in game. “Gnomes are like Soviet Russia” would add a ton of favor with very little work.

Imagine you are new to WoW lore, saw gnomes and wanted to learn more. What do you wish was in their history/culture?

I would mostly like to hear about Gnome Heroes that were active during the First and Second War. Gnomes ‘sat out’ the third war, but they were definitely a part of the second, I would like to learn the story of at least one Gnome Flying Machine Pilot and Submarine Duo from WCII. A case could be made for a gnome mage in the First war because of the Tower of Azora seems to be mostly Gnomes.

To be clear, I want these gnomes to be active in World of Warcraft today so they can share their unique gnomish insights on current events with first hand accounts of the gnome perspective on history.

I want to know what Mekkatorque and Thermaplugg were up to during the 1st and 2nd wars. Mekkatorque especially jumps at the chance to be helpful whenever he can, so certainly he was doing something.